Review of “The Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv

At The Intergenerational School (TIS) in Cleveland, we are starting a collaboration with a local assisted living community called Judson that will bring our elementary students together with elders to make monthly visits to a local nature center, as well as to the streams, ponds, and forests that lay between our respective facilities. William Wordsworth once wrote, “Let Nature be your teacher”, and we are mindful of the wealth of learning that can occur when children spend time exploring natural settings.

The book’s author Richard Louv, a long-time environmental activist, is deeply concerned that society is teaching young folks to avoid direct experiences in nature, thereby narrowing and reducing the richness of the human experience. He cites a growing body of research that increasingly links our mental, physical, and spiritual health directly with our association with nature. Generally, the evidence-base he lays out supports the intuitions many of us already have about the natural world. We learn that exposure to nature can speed up recovery time of hospitalized patients, calm people after stressful experiences, improve concentration and creativity, while increasing desire to play and move physically.

More provocatively, Louv defines a new condition called Nature-deficit Disorder (NDD), a heuristic that describes diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illness that are associated with our increasing alienation from nature. He cites evidence that exposure to nature may reduce symptoms of ADHD, improve cognitive abilities in children and negative stress and depression and implies that it might even be a replacement for medications or behavioral therapies.

The effects are especially profound in boys. He makes the interesting point that we too have advocated in The Myth of Alzheimer’s – that genetically we are still hunter-gatherers – but goes a step further in saying that the same instincts we now condemn as potentially recalcitrant in controlled academic environments (hyperactivity, strength, speed, agility, etc) were prized traits throughout human history, and even in our more recent evolution in agrarian societies. I’ve got to say that both from my personal experience growing up feeling confined by classrooms, and from observing students at TIS in their conduct inside the school and in natural environments (and talking to their teachers), I think Louv is on to something.

His solution to the problem of NDD is largely embodied in what we are trying to do at TIS – render the natural spaces in our communities into classrooms. Here, Louv believes that a holistic curriculum can be implemented. Reading and writing can be taught through students engaging the work of naturalists; math and science can be structured around learning the intricacies and patterns of nature, the interconnections between all living things, and our deep reliance on ecological health; rudimentary ethics lessons can emerge from the questions that circulate through a child’s mind as she ponders the relationship between mankind and nature; practical skills can be gained through gardening, composting, and recycling; art and creativity can emerge from listening to the language of nature and expressing the feelings that such experiences evoke.

Is this vision romantic? Yes. Is it infeasible in our current teach-to-the-test scholastic environment? Perhaps. However, I would love for someone to try to deny that spending time in nature negatively affects wellness, creativity, inventiveness, and imagination.

In my own life, which is admittedly not representative of the great web of humankind, I have found nature to be replenishing and regenerative of my own creative and contemplative spirit. I have witnessed many others of all ages, races, and genders affected in these ways. More practically, I believe that simply by being present in nature, students can develop heightened sensory skills, an ability to see interconnections and complexity of systems, a facility for categorizing things in the natural world, and a deeper understanding of networks, cycles, and evolutionary processes. Well-developed curriculums can maximize students’ capacity to synthesize their experiences.

Exposure to nature also allows for a development of a relationship with the natural world that can form a foundation for environmental stewardship. Even the most basic experience can evoke moments of transcendence and sense of wonder, as we hopefully depicted in our winning entry for the 2009 EPA’s Rachel Carson contest. This last point is indispensable since the health of the earth is contingent on emerging generations discovering roles as environmental stewards – roles that cannot be learned merely by reading and not experiencing.

As we all intuitively know, a stewardship ethic for the environment is imperative because it can also foster a sense that all living things are interconnected, including human beings. In one of his chapters, Louv includes an epigraph from Luther Standing Bear (c.1868-1939) that beautifully expresses this point: “Man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard; [the Lakota] knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too.”

Ultimately, Louv’s book is a clarion call for all of us to reexamine our innate affinity for the natural world. Beyond that, it is a charge to reflect on our educational system, our built environments, and our modern ways of living, and be mindful of the ways in which our societies are structured to suppress our ecological urge.

With that said, I will cease typing on my computer, and head out for an afternoon walk.

Comments

This is such a great article. forMemory, a national organization of persons affected directly or indirectly with early onset Alzheimer’s and related diseases, partnered with the Alzheimer’s and Dementia Alliance of Wisconsin to offer a regional camp for youth with a loved one with a dementia disease last summer called Time for Us. The youth, ages 9 to 16, spent 6 days at Lutherdale Camp doing all the fun activities. We added a morning and evening program based on “Keepers of Memory” and information about dementia. It was a time of sharing and learning. We encouraged them to find their place in universe, knowing they are not alone, knowing that they can take control and make a difference in their future. They saw how their health and well being is dependent on the health of their environment. We included nutrition ideas and stress reduction. By the end of the week they were more prepared to go back to their families and the difficult experiences that AD brings. They left with hope and the plan to return – bringing more of their siblings this summer.I believe it was the setting in nature that was most important. Chris Baum Van Ryzin

Hi Chris, what a perfect complement to the book review! These community and nature-based solutions are so vital to providing care. Do you have a website we can link to or photographs from the experience we can share? It’s so vital that we get these innovative stories out into the public consciousness. Best wishes, and please keep tuned in to the blog!
take care,
Danny

I would suggest you log onto the Children & Nature Network web site http://www.childrenandnature.org/ and wander around to visit the various articles, research, programs and activities that have spontaneously emerged since Richard Louv wrote his book. Louv and Cheryl Charles formed this non-profit to catalyze and support a movement to reconnect children with nature, and adults as well. We are now starting a concerted effort to reach out to health professionals. Thanks for your great review of Last Child in the Woods.